When people heard I was writing about the Underground Railroad – a 19th-century network of Americans helping slaves to escape – for my novel “The Last Runaway,” here are some of the responses I got:

–You know, my grandmother’s house had a space under the back porch where runaway slaves were hidden.

–When I was a boy I used to play in the woods, where there was an old tunnel that came out into the creek, and slaves hid there on the Underground Railroad. I can show you if you like, though it’s been 60 years since I saw that tunnel. Read More »

This year Martin Luther King Jr. Day coincides with the second Inauguration of President Barack Obama.

Destiny or not, this moment offers a chance to reflect on Dr. King’s legacy and talk with our families about the distance we Americans have all traveled together towards the dream of finally being the country described in our Pledge of Allegiance: One Nation, under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All.

This year, to aid with reflection on this MLK Holiday and in the days beyond, I am recommending three books–two for adults, and one for younger readers:

The Martin Luther King holiday stirs the conscience deeply. We are moved by Dr. King’s memory and legend for so many reasons. Some of us marched with him. Many of us remember the pain that shot through our nation as word of his assassination spread. Virtually all of us, even those who—like myself—were born after he was killed, imagine and wish for a world in which his life’s mission had been completed.

If Dr. King’s work ever will be finished, we must do as his parents and grandparents did and raise children who are committed to ensuring our nation lives up to the ideals expressed in our Declaration of Independence.

To encourage conversations with our children about King’s legacy, I am recommending a few feature films that are appropriate for family viewing and conversation with the teenagers in our lives.

My fiancee and I had another couple over for dinner recently and the main course, unexpectedly, was race.

They were white and we are not; we’d all been friends for more than a minute, but I wasn’t expecting the turn in our conversation.

After a few glasses of wine the wife told me she’d read my new novel and enjoyed it. I loved to hear this, of course. Do go on, Madam! She said a few more kind words but then she blushed, stammered, covered her mouth with one hand. There was something she wanted to say but couldn’t quite get it out. Then she gulped down the last of her wine, looked up at the ceiling, and said, “One of the things I liked so much is that it was a black book but not a black book, you know?”

A second incident occurred a few days later at a hotel lounge down near Wall Street. I ran into another couple; I’d gone to graduate school with the wife who was giving a reading at the bar. Her husband pulled me aside to tell me he’d just finished the new novel and that he’d loved it. Then he fidgeted for a moment, his face turning red, noticeable even under the dim lounge lights. He put his hands in his pockets and winced when he spoke again. “Part of what I liked was that it was a black book, but not a black book. You know?”

When I was younger I would’ve felt sure I knew the answer immediately. They meant it was a book they could relate to and, by implication, most black books weren’t. They meant it was a book that didn’t scare them like all those brutish black men out in the real world. They meant the book didn’t work double-time to make them feel guilty for being white. These are some of answers I would’ve come up with when I was a younger man. And, quite frankly, it would’ve been enough to end both those friendships. I would’ve stalked off, feeling self-righteous and certain and no one could’ve told me different.

But as I say, that was ten years back. And in that time, my goodness, I have said and done the wrong thing countless times, most often without even realizing I’d been an ass. (Try telling a Bangladeshi author how much you enjoy Indian literature and you’ll see what I mean.) So when these friends spoke that dread sentence I took a moment to recall their faces: flushed red with embarrassment, their eyes making contact with the ceiling, the walls, the floors—anything but me. They were scared, bordering on terrified, by what they wanted to say. It’s a black book, but not a BLACK book.

So, older now, I took a breath and simply asked them what they meant.

During this Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday stretch I’ve been thinking about the remarkable fact that both my friends said the same thing.

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.